mercury II dish positioning

[APE]

Hi everyone. Have the DG240 motor and the Mercury II receiver. Both seem to work pretty well but either the motor is a little finicky about moving sometimes or the receiver is a little testy sometimes about sending the move command, i'm thinking it's the latter. Also, i'm having trouble convincing the whole affair to move past 129w, all other positions i've observed (from 43w to 129w) are no problem. I've tried factory reset on the receiver along with a motor reset at the receiver. Didn't try motor
reset at the motor because, well, honestly, it's been real cold outside and
the motor is 20' up in the air. Lazy, i know, but hey..... any input would be
appreciated. Thanks all.

[Jim-S]

Can't be as cold as it is here in Michigan about 12" of snow, put some long underware on.......I too have been having problems with Mercury II and DG-240 90cm dish. Moved when it felt like it. It worked fine with 30' or less coax but above that I had problems. I sent the receiver to Sadoun for testing, they didn't find any problem with it. I will probably be sending my motor in next for testing.

[pictureon]

Try to clear the motor east and west limits to go past 129

[Sadoun]

Try to load the latest Mercury II (v 1.53) firmware from Fortecstar.com

[APE]

I loaded in firmware v1.53 from Fortec before i looked to you's guys for
advise. Liked a few things that came about as a result of loading....but
didn't solve the dish moving problem. I switched over to Diseq on a few
sat's exreme east/west and stored this way. Seems to work ok......but
still curious why Usals wouldn't get me there.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by APE

I loaded in firmware v1.53 from Fortec before i looked to you's guys for
advise. Liked a few things that came about as a result of loading....but
didn't solve the dish moving problem. I switched over to Diseq on a few
sat's exreme east/west and stored this way. Seems to work ok......but
still curious why Usals wouldn't get me there.

I don't know why USALS wouldn't work on some sats, and not on others (although nothing surprises me anymore with this Mercury).
One thing though, since you say that you're using DiseqC-1.2 on some sats, be aware that the Mercury's list of DiseqC-1.2 sat positions will get scrambled if you ever delete a satellite. Ie all satellite positions below the one deleted get moved down one position. Ie the list of positions doesn't change, but the list of satellites does. This can be corrected, but it's annoying. If you use the Fortec channel editor program for the Mercury, I'd advise saving a .bin file. I wrote a VB program, ie:

http://wejones.ftdata.com/bjbinview.zip

that will take that .bin file and tell you what DiseqC-1.2 sat position numbers were used by the Mercury for each sat, so if your positions ever get scrambled, you can recover without having to reprogram all the sats.

Right now the above program won't recover the sat list. I've been doing that manually with a binary editor, however I may change the program to do the recovery automatically if Fortec doesn't ever issue another firmware update. But if nothing else, the above program will tell you which numbers are being used, which comes in handy if you switch receivers. Ie you can just enter those numbers into the new (not Mercury) receiver, and won't have to program the satellites, since the positions are already stored in the motor.

[APE]

This site is always very helpful. Thanks to all for the very helpful info.
I've learned a great deal from all of you as well as hands on with fta
equipment. I've heard alot of comments about the Mercury receiver
being a little .....well.....unusual. I've learned alot from/with it....but
believe i'm ready to add another unit to my ever growing list of toys.

[Vitruvius]

Ape, Did you ever get your motor working properly? I am having a similar problem with a new motor, DG280B and my Mercury. The motor would work when first installed, but the movement was a lot slower than my old DG2100, but would fine tune much closer to signal. Actually it would work sometimes, and not other times... most of the time it would work. Now that I installed a switch to a QPH-031 linear and circular LNB, I have lost all control of the motor. I took the switch away, and the motor still doesn't move. This weekend, I will have to monkey with it....

[TexRedNK]

Hi Guys, My first post, so bear with me. I installed the Mkit-1 Bundled System (80 CM Dish and motor) and the Fortec Star Mercury II Digital Satellite Receiver about 4 weeks ago. As always, tried to read ALL the instructions that came with the units. Used the Governments Sun Transit program to determine my TRUE SOUTH position. Just happens to allign with the edge of the car-port cover installed on my city lot. ( I do wish Fortec-Star had included an INDEX and Table of Contents to the various sections of their Users Manual !!)
On my first attempt, I installed a lot of channels there were encoded. So I did a Factory Reset without saving anything and started over with FTA only searches. Finally built up a fair store of satellites and channels.
But when I noticed that some satellites had the same channels, I got suspicious. I made the mistake of deleting one or two satellites from the list. (APPARENTLY A NO NO from what I read above? ) Then I manually tried adding back one of the satellites, apparently with some success.
BUT NOW, I read above, that I should be using the USALS choice over the DiSEqC 1.2 format. I did input my present Lat 96.4 and Lon 32.6 into the USALS menu. I checked my position data from your calculator using my physical address AND also from my own GPS handheld reciver.
After several attempts to set the motor elevation angle and the 80 CM dish declanition angle, I went to Harbor Freight and bought their $10 ANGLE FINDER ( Item 94963 ; UP Code 7-92363-94963-7 ) This device with a large protractor scale AND a spirit level on a swinging arm was very helpful in measureing (or setting) various angles of the motor ARM or the str8 BRACKET on the back of the dish. I now think I could set these angles in my sleep !
At my Lon, I chose Galaxy 25 97.0W as my first satellite for set up. It is only 0.5 degrees W of my TRUE SOUTH location. I installed a signal meter in-line at the base of the motor housing and lowered the sensitivity, and made final adjustments to the motor and the dish brackets. Then I slightly rocked the dish in four directions to make sure I was centered on the Galaxy 25.
Last week we had some local storms and wind speeds of 30 MPH and gusts over 50 MPH. I did not have the clamps on my post tight enough, so the AZ was changed and the post was shifted out of PLUMB toward the South. I corrected that and re-tightend the clamps that hold the post against a post that holds up that corner of the car-port.
I then noticed there was some slack in the motor arm. I read and followed the instructions for adjusting the anti-slack mechanism inside the motor. Only error I may have made.. can it be tightened down TOO much?
Then I began to notice that the motor would not always position to the selected satillite. I even went to the Antenna Setup Menu to force it to move. It always seems to move back to Zero positon. ( BTW, I have manually gone thru the Set to Zero function several times. I attached TWO 9 V batterys to connectors and wired to a stub of F-cable and connector, so I can move the motor w/o the receiver connected ) The motor does go to both East and West limits when I use the DiSEqC 1.2 format.
NOW.. I did a Factory Reset the 2nd time and am starting over. Today (Sunday) I have not spent any time actually working with the system. Just several hours reading as many posts as I can about simular situations.
I am now concerned that I may have erased some of the satillite data out of the receiver ? If so, where can I find the data to manually re-enter the two that I erased ? Not sure I want to dnload Fortec-Stars firmware tables. Will need instructions if I do.
I may have to take the receiver and a small TV up on the roof of the car-port and work from there. I should be able to see Hispasat 30W on my East and Galaxy 129 W from my position. My receiver does presently displays T-STAR12 15.0W thru Echostar1/2 148.0W . I will ck the list again to see if any are missing, if I can find the original list. Is that list in the back of the DG-280B Motor manual ?
I guess the MAIN QUESTION I would like answers for (If you have read this far !!) is why does my motor NOT always go to the directed position ? All cables are new and connectors are new.
Any hints, suggestions.. etc will be greatly appreciated. I am also registered over on SatelliteGuys.us under this same nick/ID.
Thanks again for your patience... Regards, George (aka TexRedNK)

[Vitruvius]

Tex, I am having probs with my motor as well.
You can reload the v.1.53 into your Mercury, or you can load information off of the Lyngsat website for satellites....

Sounds like you have a good arc available when you get things working.